Providing configurable workflow capabilities

ABSTRACT

Techniques are described for providing clients with access to functionality for creating, configuring and executing defined workflows that manipulate source data in defined manners, such as under the control of a configurable workflow service that is available to multiple remote clients over one or more public networks. A defined workflow for a client may, for example, include multiple interconnected workflow components that are specified by the client and that each are configured to perform one or more types of data manipulation operations on a specified type of input data. The configurable workflow service may further execute the defined workflow at one or more times and in one or more manners, such as in some situations by provisioning multiple computing nodes provided by the configurable workflow service to each implement at least one of the workflow components for the defined workflow.

BACKGROUND

As the amount of data that is generated and used by software programshas grown, the complexity of managing and analyzing such data has alsoincreased in at least some situations. In addition, as software programsincreasingly execute in online and other networked environments, thedata to manage and analyze is increasingly accessible in disparatelocations and manners, which may increase the complexity of managing andanalyzing such data. Thus, various problems exist in managing andanalyzing data that is generated and used by software programs.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates an example embodiment of a configurable workflowservice that provides functionality to enable remote clients to create,configure and execute defined workflows that manipulate source data indefined manners.

FIGS. 2A-2B illustrate examples of using a defined workflow tomanipulate source data in particular manners in particular situations.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating an example embodiment of acomputing system configured to provide a configurable workflow servicethat manages use of defined workflows for supported client systems.

FIG. 4 illustrates an example embodiment of a flow diagram for aConfigurable Workflow Service routine.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example embodiment of a flow diagram for aWorkflow Component Worker Process routine.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Techniques are described for providing clients with access tofunctionality for creating, configuring and executing defined workflowsthat manipulate source data in defined manners, such as under thecontrol of a configurable workflow service that is available to multipleremote clients. In at least some embodiments, a remote client mayinteract with a configurable workflow service over one or more publicnetworks in order to create and configure a defined workflow that isprovided by the configurable workflow service for use by the client—sucha defined workflow may, for example, include multiple interconnectedworkflow components that each are configured to perform one or morespecified types of data manipulation operations on a specified type ofinput data. After a client has configured such a defined workflow, theconfigurable workflow service may further execute the defined workflowat one or more times and in one or more manners, such as in somesituations by provisioning multiple computing nodes provided by theconfigurable workflow service to each implement at least one of theworkflow components for the defined workflow, and by retrieving definedtypes of source data and providing it to workflow components in definedmanners. Thus, in at least some embodiments, some or all of thedescribed techniques are automatically performed by embodiments of aconfigurable workflow service, such as may be implemented by one or moresoftware modules executing on one or more configured computing systems,as described in greater detail below.

As noted above, a defined workflow may include multiple workflowcomponents, which may be of multiple types in at least some embodiments,including to have one or more data source workflow components thatcorrespond to input data for the defined workflow, one or more datamanipulation workflow components that correspond to defined datatransformations or other manipulations to be performed on data, and oneor more data destination workflow components that correspond toproviding output data from the defined workflow. In addition,interconnections may be defined between workflow components thatcorrespond to data flows between workflow components, such that dataoutput from a first component may be supplied as input to a secondcomponent, with that relationship being represented as a connection fromthe first component to the second component. In at least someembodiments and situations, the configurable workflow service mayprovide a group of predefined workflow components that a client mayselect and use in a defined workflow of the client, optionally afterbeing configured in one or more manners. Furthermore, in at least someembodiments and situations, the configurable workflow service may enablea client to supply or otherwise define some or all workflow componentsto be used in a defined workflow of the client.

Each data source workflow component that is defined for a workflow maycorrespond to obtaining data from an indicated data source, and mayinclude information such as a storage location for the data, andoptionally additional access information related to the storage location(e.g., login information associated with the client; a particular searchor other information to use to identify data to be used, such as relatedto metadata and/or data contents; etc.). In some embodiments, theconfigurable workflow service may provide internal storage locations foruse by clients in storing their source data, with a particular datasource corresponding to such an internal storage location, while inother embodiments and situations, a particular data source may beexternal to the configurable workflow service, such as one or morenetwork-accessible storage systems that are provided by or otherwisecontrolled by the client, one or more online storage services, one ormore online data generation services, etc. A non-exclusive list ofexamples of online storage services that may be used include thefollowing: Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) that stores object data ofvarious types; Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) that providesrelational database functionality; Amazon SimpleDB that providesfunctionality to store key-value pairs; Amazon DynamoDB service thatprovides NoSQL database functionality; Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS)that provides access to raw block storage devices, including to enablemounting a virtual local block storage device on a target computersystem; etc. A non-exclusive list of examples of online data generationservices includes an RSS feed, the Amazon Cloudwatch Service thatprovides monitoring functionality for executing applications andservices and generates corresponding information, etc. Data sources maythus be of various forms, such as a relational or other database (e.g.,the HBase open-source distributed database, the BigTable distributeddatabase, the MongoDB database system, the Apache Cassandra distributeddatabase management system, etc.), a hash table, a file system, anobject store, etc., optionally implemented in a distributed manner, anda non-exclusive list of examples of data groups that may be obtainedfrom a data source includes a file (e.g., a Web server log), a databaserow or other record, a stored data object, a streamed group of data,etc.

Thus, in some situations and embodiments, a particular defined workflowmay obtain and use data from multiple data sources, with some or all ofthe data sources optionally being external to the configurable workflowservice. In addition, the configurable workflow service may optionallypredefine one or more types of data source workflow components, such asto correspond to a particular internal storage mechanism of theconfigurable workflow service, to correspond to one or more particularonline storage services (e.g., online storage services that areintegrated with or otherwise affiliated with the configurable workflowservice, or that instead are unaffiliated with the configurable workflowservice), etc. Similarly, a client may optionally define one or moredata source workflow components, such as to correspond to aclient-specific storage location, to an online storage service without apredefined data source workflow component, etc.

Each data manipulation workflow component that is defined for a workflowmay correspond to performing one or more defined data transformations orother manipulations on data that is input to the data manipulationworkflow component. In addition, the output from a data manipulationworkflow component may be provided to a data destination workflowcomponent to be provided to a client, or instead may be intermediatedata that is provided to a next data manipulation workflow component,such as via one or more electronic messages, by storing the intermediatedata in a storage location accessible to the next data manipulationworkflow component (e.g., using one or more storage locations providedby the configurable workflow service), etc. Defined data manipulationsmay be of various forms, including to perform a defined type ofcalculation on one or more groups of input data, to aggregate multiplegroups of input data in one or more manners, to select a subset of oneor more groups of input data, to move data from one storage location toanother, etc. A non-exclusive list of example data manipulationsincludes performing a distributed data copy, performing one or more SQL(Structured Query Language) transforms, performing one or more mapand/or reduce functions within a map-reduce architecture (e.g., for usewithin the Amazon Elastic MapReduce service), using a scientific ormathematics package (e.g., MatLab, Mathematica, etc.), executing aclient-supplied script or other program, etc. Thus, in some situationsand embodiments, a particular defined workflow may perform multiple datamanipulation operations via multiple defined data manipulation workflowcomponents, using predefined and/or client-defined data manipulationworkflow components.

Each data destination workflow component that is defined for a workflowmay correspond to providing output data from the defined workflow to oneor more storage locations and/or in one or more manners. The types ofstorage locations used by data destination workflow components (andcorresponding information stored for such data destination workflowcomponents) may be similar to or the same as for data source workflowcomponents in at least some embodiments, including to use storagelocations that are internal to and/or external from the configurableworkflow service. In addition, in at least some embodiments andsituations, particular data destination workflow components may includepreparing and providing output data in particular manners, such as togenerate particular types of reports, to send output data via one ormore types of defined electronic communications, etc. Thus, in somesituations and embodiments, a particular defined workflow may providemultiple types of output data in multiple manners via multiple defineddata destination workflow components, using predefined and/orclient-defined data destination workflow components.

In addition, a client may define a workflow in various manners invarious embodiments. For example, an embodiment of a configurableworkflow service may provide one or more interfaces for use by a client,such as a defined GUI (“graphical user interface”), a defined API(“application programming interface”), and/or a defined CLI (“commandline interface”). When using a provided GUI, a user representative of aclient may, for example, use a visual editor to specify particularworkflow components for a workflow being defined, and may furtherspecify interconnections between particular workflow componentscorresponding to data flows—in at least some such embodiments, theconfigurable workflow service may represent the defined workflow as agraph that logically represents the workflow, with various graph nodescorresponding to particular workflow components. FIG. 2A providesadditional illustrative details with respect to an example of such aworkflow graph.

The configurable workflow service may further implement a definedworkflow for a client in various manners and at various times. In someembodiments, each time that a defined workflow is to be used, theconfigurable workflow service instantiates a physical copy of thelogical graph representing the defined workflow, such as by usingmultiple computing nodes that each implement at least one workflowcomponent for the defined workflow. In particular, in at least someembodiments, some or all of the computing nodes are provisioned by theconfigurable workflow service to configure those computing nodes toimplement particular workflow components (e.g., to load correspondingsoftware and/or data on those computing nodes), such as to each executea workload worker process corresponding to each such implementedworkflow component. The computing nodes may have various forms in atleast some embodiments, including to each be a separate physicalcomputer system, a separate virtual machine (e.g., one of multiplevirtual machines hosted on a physical computer system), a group ofmultiple physical computer systems that are operating in a distributedmanner, etc. Some or all such computing nodes used for a definedworkflow may in some embodiments be selected from a plurality ofcomputing nodes provided by the configurable workflow service for use byclients. In addition, some or all such computing nodes may be providedby or otherwise controlled by the client and/or may be provided by oneor more online execution services, whether instead of or in addition tocomputing nodes provided by the configurable workflow service. Anon-exclusive list of example online execution services that may be usedinclude the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (“EC2”) program executionservice, the Amazon Elastic MapReduce service for performing distributedmap-reduce operations (e.g., by using a cluster of computing systemsfrom the service to represent or implement a computing node for theconfigurable workflow service), etc. In addition, when a particulardefined workflow is to be implemented multiple times, the configurableworkflow service may in some embodiments maintain the provisioning andavailability of some or all computing nodes for the defined workflowbetween two or more such times of implementing the defined workflow(e.g., in accordance with instructions from the client, based on anautomated determination by the configurable workflow service, etc.),while in other embodiments may release some or all such computing nodesto be available after an implementation and provide the same types ofprovisioning of computing nodes (optionally different computing nodes)for a next implementation.

A defined workflow may further have additional types of associatedinformation in at least some embodiments and situations. For example, aclient may specify information that indicates when to implement adefined workflow, such as based on a client instruction for immediateimplementation, by scheduling future implementation at one or moredefined future times, by scheduling one or more future implementationswhen one or more defined criteria are satisfied (e.g., based at least inpart on availability of particular source data), etc. Defined criteriamay be specified in various manners, such as to be associated withparticular workflow components or instead with the defined workflow as awhole. For example, a particular workflow component may have definedprecondition criteria to evaluate to determine when to execute theworkflow component, and/or may have defined post condition criteria toevaluate when to complete execution and/or provide data that is produced(e.g., to a next workflow component, to an intermediate storagelocation, etc.). In some embodiments and situations, a defined workflowmay further have one or more associated alarms that may be used toprovide notification to a client (or to perform other activities) whenone or more specified criteria are satisfied or are not satisfied (e.g.,if a defined workflow is not implemented at a particular time, such asif particular source data is not available).

The configurable workflow service may further be a fee-based service inat least some embodiments, such that clients of the configurableworkflow service are customers that pay fees to the configurableworkflow service for at least some of the functionality provided by theconfigurable workflow service. In addition, when one or more onlinestorage services and/or online execution services are used by theconfigurable workflow service as part of implementing a particulardefined workflow for a particular client, such other services may alsooptionally charge fees for such use, whether via the configurableworkflow service or directly to the client.

Thus, use of the configurable workflow service may provide variousbenefits in various embodiments and situations, including to enable aclient to schedule gathering data from multiple sources at particulartimes or otherwise when particular criteria are satisfied, to performdefined types of data manipulation operations on the source data, and toprovide output data produced by the defined workflow in various manners.Additional benefits are discussed elsewhere herein, and will otherwisebe appreciated by those skilled in the art.

For illustrative purposes, some embodiments are described below in whichspecific instances of defining and implement workflows are provided inspecific ways, including with respect to specific types of data,specific types of data manipulation operations, and specific types ofstorage services and execution services. These examples are provided forillustrative purposes and are simplified for the sake of brevity, andthe inventive techniques can be used in a wide variety of othersituations, some of which are discussed below, and the techniques arenot limited to use with particular types of data, storage or otherdevices, computing systems or computing system arrangements.

FIG. 1 is a network diagram that illustrates an example embodiment of aconfigurable workflow service 110 that manages creation and execution ofdefined workflows for various clients of the configurable workflowservice. As part of implementing a defined workflow, the configurableworkflow service 110 further provisions particular computing nodes toeach perform specified activities corresponding to the defined workflow.In some embodiments, the configurable workflow service 110 optionallyprovides a group of computing nodes 140 on which defined workflows forclients may be executed. In other embodiments, some or all of thecomputing nodes used by the configurable workflow service may beprovided externally to the configurable workflow service, such as by aclient on whose behalf the defined workflow is implemented, by one ormore online execution services, etc. In addition, in some embodiments,the configurable workflow service 110 optionally includes one or morestorage nodes 150 on which data may be stored to facilitate theexecution of defined workflows. For example, the storage nodes 150, ifpresent, may be used to store intermediate data results that areproduced during execution of a defined workflow, and in some embodimentsmay further be used to store source data that is provided to a definedworkflow and/or final output data produced by a defined workflow. Whilenot illustrated in FIG. 1, the configurable workflow service may beimplemented using one or more configured computing systems, as describedin greater detail with respect to FIG. 3 and elsewhere.

FIG. 1 further illustrates one or more networks 190, and various clientcomputing systems 160 via which clients of the configurable workflowservice 110 may interact with the service 110 to define and executeworkflows. The network(s) 190 of FIG. 1 may include any appropriatenetwork or combination of networks, including an intranet, the Internet,one or more private networks with access to and/or from the Internet, acellular network, a local area network, or any other such network orcombination thereof. Communications over the networks may be enabled bywired or wireless connections and combinations thereof.

In some embodiments, the configurable workflow service 110 may provideone or both of a GUI (not shown) and/or an API (not shown), such as toenable clients to perform various interactions with the service 110. Forexample, a user representative (not shown) of a particular client maylocally interact with one of the client computing systems 160 to causefurther interactions to occur with the configurable workflow service 110over the network 190. The user may, for example, interact with aworkflow editor module 120 of the configurable workflow service, viawhich the user may define one or more workflows of interest for theclient. As part of the interactions with the user, the configurableworkflow service 110 may store various client information 112 regardingthe client and optionally the user representative, and may store aparticular definition of a newly defined workflow for the client as partof information 114. In some embodiments, the defining of a particularworkflow may include actions by the user in selecting one or moredefined workflow components and specifying the interactions betweenthose workflow components, such as by using one or more predefinedsystem-provided workflow component definitions 116—in other embodiments,the configurable workflow service 110 may not provide any suchsystem-provided predefined workflow components. As part of defining anew workflow, the user may further specify one or more source locationsat which source data is to be retrieved and used for the workflowdefinition, and one or more destination locations to which data that isproduced by the defined workflow will be provided. The variousinformation 112, 114, and 116 used by the configurable workflow service110 may further be stored on one or more systems that support or providethe configurable workflow service 110, such as a database of theconfigurable workflow service, although such systems are not illustratedwith respect to FIG. 1.

In addition, the user representative of the client may optionally insome embodiments define one or more new workflow components as part ofdefining a new workflow, and if so, such client-defined workflowcomponents may further have definition information stored in information116 in at least some embodiments. While a client-defined workflow andany client-defined workflow components may in some embodiments betreated as private unless otherwise specified by the client (e.g., to beaccessible or otherwise visible only to that client unless otherspecified), in other embodiments and situations, at least some suchclient-specific information may instead be made available to otherclients in specified circumstances, such as to enable other clients touse some or all of the client's defined workflow components and/orworkflows (e.g., for a fee or for other benefits provided to the clientwho defined such information, if the client who defined such informationapproves use by others, etc.). In a similar manner, source data used bya client's defined workflow and final output data produced by a client'sdefined workflow may in at least some embodiments be treated as privateto that client unless otherwise specified, although in other embodimentssome or all such source data and/or final output data may instead bemade available to other clients in specified circumstances (e.g., for afee or for other benefit to the client with which that data isassociated, if the client associated with such information approves useby others, etc.).

When a client indicates one or more storage locations from which sourcedata may be obtained and/or to which final output data may be providedfor a defined workflow, such storage locations may have various forms invarious embodiments, as discussed in greater detail elsewhere. As oneexample, in at least some embodiments, the configurable workflow servicemay be integrated with or otherwise affiliated with one or moreparticular optional online storage services 145, such as to form asingle system 105 (e.g., a single system that is operated by a singleentity). If so, interactions 147 with such optional online storageservices 145 may be performed to retrieve source data and/or to storefinal output data. Furthermore, in at least some embodiment,intermediate data results that are generated during execution of aworkflow may similarly be stored in such online storage services 145,such as to be produced by a first part of the defined workflow and to belater accessed and used by a second defined part of the workflow,whether in addition to or instead of one or more optional storage nodes150. Moreover, in at least some embodiments and situations, one or moreonline storage services 170 are available over the network 190 to theclient computing system 160 and to the configurable workflow service110, and may be used in a similar manner over the network(s) 190,whether in addition to or instead of some or all of the optional onlinestorage services 145. In addition, in at least some embodiments andsituations, a particular client may provide one or more client-specificstorage systems or other storage locations using one or more othercomputing systems 185, which may similarly be used over the network(s)190.

After a client has interacted with the configurable workflow service todefine a workflow, the client may further interact with a workflowengine module 130 of the configurable workflow service to initiateexecution of the defined workflow. The execution of a particularworkflow may be initiated in various manners, such as to be performedimmediately upon a corresponding instruction from the client, to occurat a specified future time or when other specified criteria (such as forone or more defined preconditions) are satisfied that will initiateexecution of the workflow, etc. As with the workflow editor module 120,the workflow engine module 130 may in some embodiments provide a GUIinterface and/or and API interface for use by clients. When theexecution of a defined workflow is initiated, the workflow engine module130 in the example embodiment retrieves workflow definition informationfor that defined workflow from the information 114, and initiates theexecution of the defined workflow on one or more computing nodes. Inparticular, the workflow definition may be constructed with variouslogical nodes that each correspond to defined operations and areinterconnected in various manners, and the workflow engine module 130may select particular computing nodes to use to perform particular suchoperations, as well as to further perform activities to provision andinitiate execution of corresponding workflow worker processes on eachsuch selected computing node. As part of provisioning such computingnodes and/or of executing workflow worker processes on the computingnodes, additional interactions with one or more storage locations may beperformed to obtain input data to be used and/or to store results datathat are produced, including for intermediate results data for use byother workflow worker processes of the defined workflow.

Some or all of the computing nodes used to implement a defined workflowmay, for example, be selected from optional computing nodes 140 providedby the configurable workflow service 110, if present, and workflowworker processes 142 may be executed on those computing nodes toimplement the defined operations. In other embodiments, the workflowengine module 130 may use computing nodes that are not provided by theconfigurable workflow surface 110, whether instead of or in addition tothe optional computing nodes 140. For example, in some embodiments andsituations, a particular client may provide or otherwise control one ormore other computing systems 185, and the workflow engine 130 mayconfigure and use such other computing systems 185 as computing nodesfor use in executing that client's defined workflow. In addition, insome embodiments, one or more online program execution services 148and/or 175 may be available for use in executing programs in variousmanners, and if so may be used to provide computing nodes (not shown) toexecute some or all of a particular client's defined workflow—forexample, the workflow engine module 130 may provision and initiateexecution of particular workflow worker processes on particularcomputing nodes provided by such online program execution services. Asone example, in at least some embodiments, the configurable workflowservice may be integrated with or otherwise affiliated with one or moreparticular optional online program execution services 148 (whether inaddition to or instead of one or more optional storage services 145),such as part of a single system 105 as described above. If so,interactions 149 with such optional online program execution services148 may be performed to provision computing nodes, initiate execution ofparticular workflow components, receive output data produced byparticular workflow components, etc.

In other embodiments, the configurable workflow service 110 may performadditional techniques, such as to generate and provide particular typesof source data for defined workflows, to perform additional activitieswith respect to managing final output data produced by clients' definedworkflows, etc. In addition, the configurable workflow service 110 maybe implemented in some embodiments based on software instructions thatexecute on one or more server computing systems to program or otherwiseconfigure the server computing system(s) to perform some or all of thedescribed techniques, such as to program one or more hardware CPUprocessors (not shown) of the server computing system(s)—such softwareinstructions may, for example, be used to implement the modules 120and/or 130, or instead the functionality of the configurable workflowservice may be provided using other types of modules.

In this manner, the configurable workflow service 110 provides variousbenefits to various external clients, including to enable the clients todefine workflows that may be executed using computing and storageresources of the configurable workflow service 110 in part or in whole,to interact with various types of online data sources to obtain data tobe manipulated, and to provide output data that is produced for storageor other use. Additional details related to particular operations of theconfigurable workflow service 110 are included elsewhere herein.

Although the foregoing example embodiment of FIG. 1 is described withrespect to a configurable workflow service 110 that provides varioustypes of functionality in conjunction with one or more client systemsthat each may have one or more associated users, it will be appreciatedthat various other embodiments may exist. For example, in at least someembodiments and situations, a client may represent an organization orother group (e.g., a company that has multiple people instead of anindividual person). Thus, a client entity may have various forms invarious embodiments.

In some embodiments, the configurable workflow service 110 andoptionally any online storage services and/or online program executionservices that are used may each operate according to one or morefee-based structures or agreements. For example, access to some or allof the described techniques from the configurable workflow service 110may in some embodiments be provided in a fee-based or other paid mannerto a provider or operator of the configurable workflow service 110and/or to at least some client systems that use described techniques ofthe configurable workflow service 110. As one example, clients of theconfigurable workflow service 110 may pay one-time fees, periodic (e.g.,monthly) fees, and/or one or more types of usage-based fees to usefunctionality provided by the configurable workflow service 110. Suchfees may be based on one or more factors and activities, such asindicated in the following non-exclusive list: based on a quantityand/or type of interactions performed to define a particular workflow; asize and/or type of a defined workflow and/or of some or all of itsdefined workflow components; based on usage of a defined workflow, suchas a measure of computing resources used in executing a defined workflow(e.g., a quantity of computing nodes used), a measure of processorcapability used (e.g., CPU cycles), an amount of time that occurs duringthe execution of the defined workflow, activities in provisioningcomputing nodes for a defined workflow, amount of time during whichcomputing nodes that are provisioned for a defined workflow areunavailable for other use, such as while those computing nodes wait forsource data to be available or other preconditions to be satisfied,based on a quantity of data that is stored and/or transferred, such asbased on a size of the data, an amount of time of the storage, etc.;based on content or other characteristics of particular data groups thatare stored, manipulated and/or produced; etc.

FIGS. 2A-2B illustrate examples of defining and executing a workflow fora client in particular manners in particular situations. In particular,in the examples of FIGS. 2A-2B, a client has access to Weblog data (suchas from a Web site operated by the client, or instead in other manners),and desires to analyze that data to determine information of interest.In particular, in this example, the client desires to perform periodic(e.g., every three hours) analysis of the Weblog data in order toidentify clickstream data of particular users of the Web site, and toaggregate that clickstream data in one or more manners (e.g., todetermine aggregate information for particular defined age groups of theusers of the Web sites). After the clickstream data is aggregated in thedefined manners, it may further be used in various manners, including tobe stored in a database of the client for later use, as well as to beused to generate one or more reports that are provided to the client viaone or more electronic communications.

In particular, with respect to FIG. 2A, a particular client of theconfigurable workflow service (referred to in this example as “CustomerC”) has defined a new workflow that includes various nodes andinterconnections, such as based on various interactions with a workfloweditor module of the configurable workflow service, or instead byperforming one or more programmatic interactions with a defined API ofthe configurable workflow service to provide information about thedefined workflow in a defined manner (e.g., by uploading a file orotherwise specifying one or more data structures to represent thedefined workflow). In this example, the defined workflow is representedwith a logical graph 200 that includes various nodes.

In FIG. 2A, the Customer C has defined two data source nodes 220 torepresent two types of sources of data for the defined workflow. Thefirst data source 220 a corresponds to the Weblog data that becomesavailable periodically, which in this example is stored by an onlinestorage service 205. In particular, in this example the online storageservice 205 stores various data groups 206 and 207 (e.g., files), andthe node 220 a that corresponds to the Weblog data source includesinformation to use to select one or more particular data groups 207 fromthe online storage service that represent the Weblog data for theclient. The node 220 a may include various criteria to use to identifyparticular data groups 207, such as a file name or other metadataassociated with a particular data group, one or more specified criteriawith respect to content of the data groups 207 (e.g., a time framecorresponding to Weblog data to be used to extract records from adatabase that correspond to a time period of interest), etc. The node220 a may further include various access information to be used toobtain the data groups 207 from the online storage service 205, such asaccount information or other access information for Customer C at theonline storage service with which the data groups 207 are associated. Inaddition, in this example the Customer C has defined one or morepreconditions as part of node 225 a that are associated with the datasource node 220 a, such as to indicate that the execution of node 220 aand then the rest of the workflow is to begin when the data groups 207that satisfy the specified criteria for the node 220 a are available. Inother embodiments, the preconditions 225 a or other configurationinformation for the execution of the defined workflow may have otherforms, such as to indicate that the workflow is to be executed at aparticular time, or after a particular amount of time has passed sincethe last execution of the defined workflow. Thus, the preconditions 225a may, for example, be implemented in a worker process that interactswith the online storage service 205 to determine when the data groups207 are available, and then initiates execution of a worker processcorresponding to node 220 a—in at least some embodiments, theconfigurable workflow service may wait to implement some or all nodes ofthe workflow 200 other than a precondition node 225 a until thosepreconditions are satisfied, such as to provision a computing node toexecute the worker process corresponding to node 220 a after thepreconditions have been satisfied.

In addition to the Weblog data source node 220 a, the Customer C hasalso defined a data source node 220 b that corresponds to a database ofthe client, such as may be stored on one or more storage systems (notshown) under control of the client or instead that are available via anonline database storage service (not shown). In this example, thedatabase 210 of the Customer C includes various data groups 211 and 212(e.g., database records), with the data groups 212 storing clickstreamdata that has been previously generated for the Web site of the client,whether by previous executions of this or a similar workflow, or insteadin other manners. In this example, the node 220 b does not include anydefined preconditions, such as based on the database data being known tobe present, or instead based on the database data being optional for theexecution of the defined workflow (e.g., so that the current Weblog datawill be added to and aggregated with any previously stored clickstreamdata, but will generate new clickstream data to be stored even if suchexisting clickstream data does not exist).

In addition to the data source nodes 220, the Customer C has furtherdefined various data manipulation nodes 235 a-280 a that are part of thedefined workflow. The defined nodes 235 a-280 a of the workflow eachspecify one or more data manipulation operations to be performed onspecified source data, and to perform particular activities with theresults of those defined data manipulation operations. In particular, inthis example the Customer C has defined a first node 235 a that isinterconnected with the data source node 220 a, with the node 235 abeing configured to perform data manipulation operations that involveextracting clickstream data for various users from the Weblog data thatis provided by the data source node 220 a. As discussed in greaterdetail elsewhere, the data manipulation operations may be specified invarious manners, including with particular program code to be executed,database operations to be performed (e.g., specified in SQL or inanother defined database manipulation format), via use of definedmathematical or scientific libraries or functions, etc. Furthermore,particular data manipulation operations may be specified in othermanners in other embodiments, such as to combine some or all of thedefined nodes 235 a-280 a in a fewer number of nodes (e.g., one), and/orto separate the data transformation operations of node 235 a intomultiple distinct nodes.

In this example, after the data manipulation node 235 a performs itsdata manipulation operations, the intermediate results of those datamanipulation operations are configured to be provided to a next datamanipulation node 240 a, which in this example is configured toassociate each group of clickstream data that is extracted by node 235 awith a particular user. For example, the clickstream data provided bynode 235 a may be grouped and associated with a unique identifier foreach user, but may lack further identifying information about thecorresponding users. The data manipulation operations of node 240 a mayinclude identifying particular users, and determining correspondinginformation for those users. For example, an age of each user may beobtained and used in node 240 a to be associated with the user'scorresponding clickstream data that was extracted in block 235 a.Accordingly, the intermediate results output data from block 240 aincludes a group of clickstream data corresponding to particular usersthat are identified by age, and are configured in this exampleembodiment to be provided a next data manipulation node 245 a that isdefined for the workflow. While not illustrated in this example, thedata manipulation node 240 a may further in some embodiments obtainuser-related data from another data source node (not shown) to enableits operations, such as from one of the illustrated source locations 205or 210, or instead from a different source location (not shown).

The data manipulation node 245 a is defined in this example embodimentto aggregate the various clickstream data and associated users from node240 a by defined groups of ages, such as to aggregate clickstream datafor users in age groups 18-25, 26-50, 51-65, and 66+. Thus, theintermediate results from the data manipulation operations of node 245 amay include summary information for one or more clickstream measures foreach defined age group, such as number of pages viewed, amount of timespent per page or per site, particular types of activities performed,etc. These intermediate data results produced by the node 245 a areconfigured in the illustrated example to be provided to a datamanipulation node 275 a that combines this new clickstream data withother preexisting clickstream data if available.

In addition, while the nodes of the defined workflow are illustrated inthe example of FIG. 2A in a logical manner that shows interconnectionsbetween the nodes in an abstract manner, in some embodiments, thedefined workflow may further include additional details about how theimplementation of the defined workflow is to occur during execution. Forexample, some or all of the nodes of the defined workflow may includedetails about particular storage locations from which to obtain the datathat the node is to use, and/or particular storage locations in whichthe results of the node are to be stored. Thus, with respect to datamanipulation node 245 a, the node may further be defined to optionallystore the intermediate data results that it produces in a particularspecified storage location, which is illustrated in FIG. 2A as optionalintermediate storage 250. Such intermediate storage 250 may, forexample, correspond to one or more of optional storage nodes 150 of FIG.1, optional online storage services 145 of FIG. 1, online storageservices 170 of FIG. 1, etc. As one specific example, the intermediatestorage 250 may be the online storage service 205, and the node 245 amay be configured to store its results as one or more particular datagroups 208 (not shown) on the online storage service, such as byspecifying a particular data group name or other storage location of theonline storage service in which the intermediate results from node 245 awill be stored. In a similar manner, if such an intermediate storagelocation is specified for node 245 a, the next node 275 a in the nodegraph may include a defined input storage location that is that samestorage location from which to obtain those intermediate data resultsproduced by the node 245 a. Additional details of the user of suchintermediate storage locations are described in further detail withrespect to the example of FIG. 2B. In other embodiments, theconfigurable workflow service may manage the transfer of data betweenworkflow components, whether by using one or more intermediate storagelocations that are automatically selected by the configurable workflowservice, by performing message passing, etc.

In addition, as previously noted, the Customer C has in this examplepreviously generated data groups 212 on the database 210 that correspondto previously existing clickstream data for the client. Such clickstreamdata may, for example, include some or all of the types of clickstreamdata that is aggregated with respect to node 245 a, and may furtherinclude various other types of clickstream data that does not correspondto node 245 a, such as with respect to other data groups 211 of thedatabase 210. In addition, the data source node 220 b was previouslydefined to extract those data groups 212 that correspond to theclickstream data of interest for this defined workflow. Accordingly, theCustomer C further defines a data manipulation node 270 a that isconfigured to receive those data groups 212 from the clickstream datasource node 220 b, and to retrieve particular clickstream data ofinterest corresponding to the defined age groups and types ofclickstream data of node 245 a. The data manipulation operations of node270 a may include, for example, extracting particular data records fromthe database 210, or may include additional types of operations (e.g.,performing one or more database join operations to combine data frommultiple database tables of the database, performing one or moredatabase select operations to select a subset of data from a databasetable, etc.). Thus, the intermediate data results provided by the datamanipulation of node 270 a include the same types of clickstream dataand the same types of defined age groups as were previously noted withrespect to node 245 a. In other embodiments, one or more of the nodes235 a-245 a may instead manipulate the new clickstream data to match thedatabase record structure of the data groups 212.

Thus, the data manipulation node 275 a is configured to receiveintermediate data results that are produced by node 245 a, and isfurther configured to receive intermediate data results produced by node270 a. When both types of data are available, the node 275 a isconfigured to combine the clickstream data of the defined types by thedefined age groups. The intermediate data results produced by the node275 a are then configured to be used in two distinct manners in thisexample. In particular, the Customer C has further defined two datadestination nodes 230 that correspond to two defined destinations towhich the data produced by the defined workflow will be provided. Inparticular, a first data destination node 230 a is defined to correspondto the database 210 of the Customer C, and in particular to correspondto the same set of data groups 212 as does the data source node 220 b.Thus, when the intermediate data results of node 275 a are produced andmade available to the data destination node 230 a, those data resultsare configured to be sent to the database 210 as final output of thedefined workflow, and to be stored as part of the data groups 212, suchas by adding additional data records to the database to supplement thepreviously existing data that was retrieved by node 220 b, or to insteadreplace some or all of the previously retrieved data with new updateddata that further includes the information from the most recent set ofWeblog data.

In addition to storing the updated clickstream data in the database 210,the Customer C further defines a data destination node 230 b thatcorresponds to communicating a generated report to the Customer C viaone or more electronic communications sent to a mailbox 290 of theCustomer C. Thus, the defined workflow 200 further includes a datamanipulation node 280 a that is defined to take the intermediate resultsfrom the node 275 a and to perform data manipulation operations thatinclude generating a report in a defined manner that includes some orall of the clickstream data from node 275 a (e.g., optionally just thenew clickstream data output by node 245 a). The intermediate dataresults generated by the node 280 a, which in this example areconfigured to include one or more defined reports that presentinformation in a structured manner, are provided to the data destinationnode 230 b, which is configured to provide that final output of thedefined workflow 200 to the mailbox 290 of the Customer C via one ormore electronic communications.

Thus, in the illustrated example of FIG. 2A, the Customer C client ofthe configurable workflow service has defined a workflow 200 that, whenimplemented, combines data of different types from different sources toproduce multiple types of output data of interest to the client, whichis automatically made available to the client in multiple specifiedmanners.

FIG. 2B continues the example of FIG. 2A, and in particular providesadditional details related to an example implementation of the definedworkflow 200 of FIG. 2A. In particular, FIG. 2B illustrates variouscomputing nodes 140 that have been configured to perform variousworkflow worker processes 225 b-280 b that correspond to the logicalnodes 225 a-238 a of the defined workflow graph 200.

As discussed in greater detail elsewhere, the computing nodes 140 maycome from one or more sources, including by using one or more computingnodes provided by the configurable workflow service, by using one ormore computing nodes made available by the Customer C client, and/or byusing one or more computing nodes provided by each of one or moreexternal online execution services. When accessing computing nodes madeavailable by the Customer C client, the configurable workflow servicemay optionally use access information supplied by the Customer C clientto enable interactions with those computing nodes (e.g., to provisionthe computing nodes, to execute software on the computing nodes, etc.).When accessing computing nodes from an external online execution servicefor use on behalf of the client, the configurable workflow service mayin some embodiments and situations use information for the client aspart of interactions with the online execution service, such asinformation for an existing account of the client with the onlineexecution service—if so, the computing nodes from the online executionservice that are being used by the configurable workflow service may inat least some such situations also be accessible to the client viainteractions between the client and the configurable workflow service.Alternatively, when accessing computing nodes from an external onlineexecution service for use on behalf of the client, the configurableworkflow service may in some embodiments and situations use an accountof the configurable workflow service with the online execution service,such that the online execution service considers those computing nodesto be associated with the configurable workflow service rather than theclient—if so, those computing nodes from the online execution servicethat are being used by the configurable workflow service on behalf ofthe client may in at least some such situations not be accessible (orpossibly even visible) to the client, including based on anyinteractions between the client and the configurable workflow service.

FIG. 2B includes the online storage service 205 of FIG. 2A, although itdoes not illustrate details about the particular data groups 206 and 207that are stored by the online storage service 205. In this example, theconfigurable workflow service has selected and provisioned a firstcomputing node E 140 e to perform a workflow worker process 225 b thatcorresponds to the preconditions node 225 a of the defined workflow 200,such as by determining whether the defined preconditions are satisfied(e.g., by performing one or more interactions 257 to determine whetherparticular source data from the online storage service 205 thatcorresponds to the data groups 207 of FIG. 2A are available). When thepreconditions are satisfied, the workflow worker process 225 b initiatesthe performance of a next worker process 235 b, such as by providingcorresponding instructions (not shown) to the configurable workflowservice. The configurable workflow service has further selected andprovisioned a computing node A 140 a to perform the workflow workerprocess 235 b in this example, which corresponds to the node 235 a ofthe defined workflow 200. In particular, the worker process 235 b ofFIG. 2B performs one or more interactions 255 a to obtain source datafrom the online storage service 205 that correspond to the data groups207 of FIG. 2A, such as by using information defined with respect to thesource node 220 a of FIG. 2A, and in accordance with the preconditionsfor the node 225 a of the defined workflow 200 being satisfied.

The worker processes 225 b and 235 b may in some embodiments andsituations execute at different times, on different types of computingnodes (e.g., if the computing node E is provided by the configurableworkflow service, and the computing node A is provided externally to theconfigurable workflow service), in different manners (e.g., with workerprocess 225 b executing on a single physical computing system thatprovides computing node E, and with worker process 235 b executing in adistributed manner on multiple physical computing systems that providecomputing node A), etc. Thus, while a particular worker process such asworker process 235 b is illustrated as a single process in the exampleof FIG. 2B, it will be appreciated that actual worker processes may beimplemented in various manners in various embodiments, including byusing one or more physical computing systems to represent the computingnode that executes the worker process, whether provided by theconfigurable workflow service or instead by one or more online programexecution services that are external to the configurable workflowservice.

In the illustrated example, after the worker process 235 b receives thesource data via interactions 255 a and performs the data manipulationoperations described with respect to node 235 a of FIG. 2A, the workerprocess 235 b generates intermediate data results that are stored inonline storage service 205 via one or more interactions 225 b with theonline storage service. While the particular intermediate results arenot illustrated in the example of FIG. 2B, the results may be stored invarious manners, as described with respect to the intermediate storage250 of FIG. 2A, including in a particular storage location that isconfigured as part of the node 235 a and/or the worker process 235 b.

After the intermediate results have been stored via the interactions 225b, a worker process 240 b executing on computing node B 140 b performsmore interactions 255 c with the online storage service 205 to obtainthose intermediate data results for use, optionally based on the use ofone or more preconditions (not shown) that are satisfied when thoseintermediate data results are available. In particular, in this examplethe configurable workflow service has selected computing node B toexecute worker processes 240 b and 245 b that correspond to the nodes240 a and 245 a of FIG. 2A, respectively. Thus, with respect to theworker process 240 b, the process performs one or more data manipulationoperations previously described with respect to node 240 a of the FIG.2A. In this example, because the computing node B is executing multipleworker processes, the intermediate data results produced by the workerprocess 240 b are not stored in the online storage service 205, but areinstead passed directly via interactions 255 d to the worker 245 b, suchas via in-memory access or instead via one or more other types ofelectronic communications. In other embodiments, the worker process 240b may instead store such intermediate data results with the onlinestorage service even if the next worker process 245 b in the dataflowwill later retrieve and use those same intermediate data results.

In this example, the executing worker process 245 b next performs thedata manipulation operations previously described with respect to node245 a of FIG. 2A, including to use the intermediate data resultsproduced by the worker process 240 b and to generate its ownintermediate data results, which in this example are stored in theonline storage service 205 via one or more interactions 255 e. While theonline storage service 205 is used to store the intermediate dataresults of multiple distinct worker processes in this example, in otherembodiments the intermediate data results of the various workerprocesses may be stored in other manners, including to storeintermediate data results of different worker processes in differentonline storage services, or instead in other manners.

In addition to the online storage service 205 of FIG. 2A, FIG. 2B alsoillustrates the database 210 of the Customer C client, although theexample data groups 211 and 212 of FIG. 2A are not illustrated in FIG.2B. In this example, the configurable workflow service has furtherselected a computing node C 140 c to execute a worker process 270 b thatcorresponds to the node 270 a of the workflow 200 of FIG. 2A. Thus, theworker process 270 b of FIG. 2B performs one or more data manipulationoperations previously described with respect to node 270 a, including toperform interactions 255 f with the database 210 to obtain the datagroups 212 defined with respect to the data source node 220 b. In thisexample, the worker process 270 b similarly stores its intermediate dataresults in the online storage service 205 via one or more interactions255 g, although in other embodiments may store such intermediate resultsin other manners.

After the intermediate data results are available from the workerprocesses 245 b and 270 b, a worker process 275 b of computing node D140 d performs one or more interactions 255 h with the online storageservice 205 to obtain both of those sets of intermediate data results,and to generate corresponding combined data by performing one or moredata manipulation operations previously described with respect to node275 a of FIG. 2A. In particular, in this example the configurableworkflow service has selected computing node D to execute the workerprocess 275 b, as well as a worker process 280 b that corresponds tonode 280 a of FIG. 2A. Thus, after the worker process 275 b produces itsresults, the process performs one or more interactions 255 j to storethose results in the database 210, such as in a manner specified withrespect to destination node 230 a of FIG. 2A. In addition, in thisexample, the worker process 280 b obtains those intermediate dataresults from worker process 275 b via one or more interactions 255 i,and generates one or more reports in the manner configured with respectto node 280 a of FIG. 1. The worker process 280 b further proceeds toperform one or more interactions 255 k to send those reports to amailbox 290 of Customer C, such as in a manner specified with respect todestination node 230 b of FIG. 2A.

Thus, in this manner, the logical defined workflow graph 200 of FIG. 2Ais implemented via a physical instantiation of that defined workflowusing the computing nodes 140 illustrated with respect to FIG. 2B, aswell as using intermediate storage to manage the transfer of some or allintermediate data results between workflow worker processes.

It will be appreciated that the examples of FIGS. 2A and 2B are providedfor illustrative purposes, and that the invention is not limited by thedetails discussed with respect to those examples.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating an example embodiment of acomputer system suitable for performing techniques to manage thedefinition and implementation of workflows for supported client systems.In particular, FIG. 3 illustrates a server computer system 300 suitablefor executing an embodiment of a system 340 that provides a configurableworkflow service, as well as various client computer systems 350,optional online storage service systems 360, optional online programexecution service systems 370, and other computing systems 380. In theillustrated embodiment, the computer system 300 has components thatinclude one or more hardware CPU processors 305, various I/O components310, storage 320, and memory 330, with the illustrated I/O componentsincluding a display 311, a network connection 312, a computer-readablemedia drive 313, and other I/O devices 315 (e.g., a keyboard, a mouse,speakers, etc.). In other embodiments, the computer system 300 may havemore or less components than are illustrated, and the local storage 320may optionally be provided by one or more non-volatile storage devicesthat are included within or otherwise locally attached to the computersystem 300.

In addition, the illustrated client computer systems 350 have componentssimilar to those of computer system 300, including a CPU 351, I/Ocomponents 352 (although particular components are not illustrated),storage 354, and memory 357. The other systems 360, 370, and 380 mayalso each include similar components to some or all of the componentsillustrated with respect to computer system 300, but such components arenot illustrated in this example for the sake of brevity. The clientcomputer systems 350 each includes a browser program 358 executing inmemory 357, such as to enable a user of such a client computer system tointeract with a Web-based GUI provided by the configurable workflowservice system 340, and also optionally stores information 355 aboutclient-specific workflow components on the local storage 354, althoughin other embodiments one or both of these components may not be presenton some or all client systems. Furthermore, a particular client computersystem 350 may have more or less components than are illustrated.

An embodiment of a configurable workflow service system 340 is executingin memory 330 of computer system 300, such as to include softwareinstructions that, when executed by the CPU 305, program or otherwiseconfigure the computer system 300 to perform automated operations toprovide some or all of the described techniques. While not illustratedin FIG. 3, the system 340 may include one or more modules, optionallycorresponding to modules 120 and/or 130 of FIG. 1. In addition, theserver computer system may further optionally execute one or more onlinestorage services 335 and/or one or more online program executionservices 337 in memory 330, such as to correspond to situations in whichthe configurable workflow service system 340 is integrated with orotherwise operates in conjunction with such services 335 and/or 337,although the system 340 may instead operate independently of any suchother systems in some embodiments. In other embodiments, any such onlinestorage services and/or online program execution services that are usedby the configurable workflow service system 340 may be accessed over thenetwork 390, such as with respect to optional systems 360 and/or 370.

In this example embodiment, the configurable workflow service system 340includes functionality related to managing workflow-relatedfunctionality for supported client systems, and is further optionallyconfigured to interact with client computer systems 350 and/or othersystems and devices over the network 390 (e.g., via the Internet and/orthe World Wide Web, via a private cellular network, etc.). The othersystems 350, 360, 370 and/or 380 may also each be executing varioussoftware as part of interactions with the system 340. Variousinformation related to the operation of the configurable workflowservice system 340 (and optionally services 335 and/or 337) may bestored in storage 320 or instead remotely, such as information 322 aboutparticular client systems and/or users, information 324 about one ormore particular defined workflows for clients, and information 326 aboutany defined workflow components, such as in a manner similar to that ofinformation 112-116 of FIG. 1 or as described elsewhere herein.Additional details regarding operations of the system 340 in particularembodiments are described in greater detail elsewhere.

It will be appreciated that systems 300, 350, 360, 370 and 380 aremerely illustrative and are not intended to limit the scope ofembodiments of the present disclosure. For example, system 340 mayinstead be executed by multiple interacting computing systems ordevices, and computing system 300 may be connected to other devices thatare not illustrated, including through one or more networks such as theInternet, via the World Wide Web (“Web”), or other electroniccommunications network (e.g., cellular based network, public switchedtelephone network). More generally, a computer system or computingsystem or computing node may comprise any combination of hardware thatcan interact and perform the described types of functionality,optionally when programmed or otherwise configured by particularcorresponding software instructions, including without limitationdesktop or other fixed-location computers, laptops and tablets and othermobile computers, database servers, network storage devices and othernetwork devices, PDAs, smart phones and other cell phones, wirelessphones, pagers, electronic organizers, Internet appliances,television-based systems (e.g., using set-top boxes and/orpersonal/digital video recorders), and various other consumer productsthat include appropriate communication capabilities. In addition, thefunctionality provided by the illustrated system 340 may in someembodiments be distributed in various modules.

It will also be appreciated that, while various items are illustrated asbeing stored in memory or on storage while being used, these items orportions of them may be transferred between memory and other storagedevices for purposes of memory management and data integrity.Alternatively, in other embodiments some or all of the software modulesand/or systems may execute in memory on another device and communicatewith the illustrated computer systems via inter-computer communication.Thus, in some embodiments, some or all of the described techniques maybe performed by hardware means that include one or more processorsand/or memory and/or storage when configured by one or more softwareprograms (e.g., by the system 340) and/or data structures (e.g., definedworkflow information 324 and/or defined workflow component information326), such as by execution of software instructions of the one or moresoftware programs and/or by storage of such software instructions and/ordata structures. Furthermore, in some embodiments, some or all of thesystems and/or modules may be implemented or provided in other manners,such as by using means (e.g., specialized electronics) that areimplemented at least partially or completely in firmware and/orhardware, including, but not limited to, one or moreapplication-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), standard integratedcircuits, controllers (e.g., by executing appropriate instructions, andincluding microcontrollers and/or embedded, controllers),field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), complex programmable logicdevices (CPLDs), etc. Some or all of the modules, systems and datastructures may also be stored (e.g., as software instructions orstructured data) on non-transitory computer-readable storage media, suchas a hard disk or flash drive or other non-volatile storage device,volatile or non-volatile memory (e.g., RAM), a network storage device,or a portable media article to be read by an appropriate drive (e.g., aDVD disk, a CD disk, an optical disk, etc.) or via an appropriateconnection. The systems, modules and data structures may also in someembodiments be transmitted as generated data signals (e.g., as part of acarrier wave or other analog or digital propagated signal) on a varietyof computer-readable transmission media, including wireless-based andwired/cable-based media, and may take a variety of forms (e.g., as partof a single or multiplexed analog signal, or as multiple discretedigital packets or frames). Such computer program products may also takeother forms in other embodiments. Accordingly, the present invention maybe practiced with other computer system configurations.

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram of an example embodiment of a ConfigurableWorkflow Service routine 400. The routine may be provided by, forexample, execution of the configurable workflow service 110 of FIG. 1and/or the configurable workload service system 340 of FIG. 3, such asto manage the definition and implementation of workflows for variousremote clients of the configurable workflow service. In this exampleembodiment, the routine may manage accessing information from and/orproviding information to one or more data storage systems or datastorage services, whether external to the configurable workflow serviceroutine, or integrated with or otherwise affiliated with theconfigurable workflow service routine, although the described techniquesmay be used in other manners in other embodiments.

In the illustrated embodiment, the routine begins at block 405, where aninstruction is received related to managing workflow-relatedfunctionality. The routine continues to block 410 to determine if theinstruction received in block 405 is to define a new workflow on behalfof a client of the configurable workflow service. If so, the routinecontinues to blocks 415-425 to obtain and store information about adefined workflow for the client. As described in greater detailelsewhere, in some embodiments and situations, the configurable workflowservice may provide a user interface via which a user representative ofthe client interactively specifies information for the new workflowbeing defined, while in other embodiments the information to use todefine a new workflow may instead be received via one or moreprogrammatic interactions from one or more executing programs on behalfof the client.

In the illustrated embodiment, the routine in block 415 optionallyprovides information to the client about options for defining the newworkflow, including system-defined workflow components that areavailable to be selected and used by the client—such information may beprovided, for example, via a GUI of the configurable workflow service bydisplaying corresponding information and functionality to the user.After block 415, the routine continues to block 420 to receiveconfiguration information to define the workflow for the client. In someembodiments, such configuration information may be received viaprogrammatic interactions with an API of the configurable workflowservice, while in other embodiments and situations, the informationreceived in block 420 may be provided via a user representative of theclient via a user interface of the configurable workflow service. Itwill be appreciated that the definition of a workflow via a userinterface of the configurable workflow service may involve multiplesuccessive interactions by a user representative of the client, with theconfigurable workflow service optionally updating and providingadditional or alternative information to the user via a user interfacebased on prior selections that have been made. Thus, the functionalityof blocks 415 and 420 may include multiple iterative activities by theconfigurable workflow service in some embodiments and situations. Afterblock 420, when the definition of the new workflow has been completed,the routine continues to block 425 to store workflow definitioninformation for the client for later use, such as by using a database orother storage location internal to the configurable workflow service. Insome embodiments, the client may further provide an instruction toinitiate execution of the workflow at this time, such as may be handledwith respect to blocks 435-450 of the routine 400.

If it is instead determined in block 410 that the instruction receivedin block 405 is not to define the new workflow, the routine continuesinstead to block 435 to determine if the received instruction is toexecute an existing workflow, such as an instruction received from aclient to initiate current execution (e.g., with respect to a newlydefined workflow, as discussed with respect to blocks 415-425), anindication that a scheduled time that was previously specified for suchexecution has arrived, etc. If so, the routine continues to block 440 toretrieve stored workflow definition information for the client, such asfrom an internal database or other storage location associated with theconfigurable workflow service. After block 440, the routine continues toblock 445 to select computing nodes to use to execute worker processesfor the workflow, and to provision those selected computing nodes forthose worker processes. As discussed in greater detail elsewhere, thecomputing nodes that are selected to be used may have various forms invarious embodiments, including computing nodes provided by theconfigurable workflow service for use by the various clients of theconfigurable workflow service, computing nodes provided by one or moreexternal (optionally affiliated) program execution services, computingnodes that are provided by or otherwise under the control of the client,etc. In addition, the provisioning of the selected computing nodes mayinclude, for example, loading software to be executed for one or moreparticular worker processes on each selected computing node, optionallyloading data to be used by such worker processes on each selectedcomputing node, etc. After block 445, the routine continues to block 450to initiate the execution of the worker processes for the workflow beingexecuted on the selected computing nodes. FIG. 5 illustrates additionaldetails of one example embodiment of provisioning and executing a workerprocess on a selected computing node.

If it is instead determined in block 435 that the instruction receivedin block 405 is not to execute a defined workflow, the routine continuesinstead to block 460 to determine if the instruction received is tocheck preconditions for one or more defined workflows, such as forworkflows that are configured to execute when their preconditions aresatisfied. If so, the routine continues to block 465 to retrieveinformation about preconditions for any such defined workflows, and todetermine if those retrieved preconditions are currently satisfied. Theroutine then continues to block 470 to determine if sufficientpreconditions have been satisfied for any defined workflows to initiatetheir implementation, and if so returns to block 440 to initiateexecution of each such defined workflow. The instruction to checkpre-conditions at a particular time may be initiated in various mannersin various embodiments, such as on a periodic basis, in response toindications of events that have occurred (e.g., new arrival oravailability of data), etc.

If it is instead determined at block 460 that the instruction receivedin block 405 is not to currently check workflow preconditions for anydefined workflows, the routine continues instead to block 490 to performone or more other indicated operations as appropriate. The operationsperformed with respect to block 490 may have various forms in variousembodiments and at various times, including to modify or remove definedworkflows for clients, stop or otherwise modify current or scheduledexecutions for defined workflows for clients, check for alarm conditionswith respect to any defined workflows and take corresponding action asappropriate, etc.

After blocks 425, 450, or 490, or if it is instead determined in block470 that no defined workflows have preconditions that are currentlysatisfied, the routine continues to block 495 to determine whether tocontinue, such as until an explicit indication to terminate is received.If it is determined to continue, the routine continues to block 405, andotherwise continues to block 499 and ends.

FIG. 5 is a flow diagram of an example embodiment of a WorkflowComponent Worker Process routine 500. The routine may be provided by,for example, execution of a configured worker process for a definedworkflow on a provisioned computing node, such as with respect to thecomputing nodes 140 and workflow worker processes 142 of FIG. 1 andcomputing nodes 140 and worker processes 235 b-280 b of FIG. 2B, withrespect to computing nodes provided by other external program executionservices and corresponding worker processes executed by those computingnodes, and/or with respect to computing nodes provided by or otherwisecontrolled by the client and corresponding worker processes executed bythose computing nodes.

In this example embodiment of the routine, the actions of the routineare illustrated with respect to a single worker process, although itwill be appreciated that a particular computing node may executemultiple worker processes in particular embodiments and situations, andthat a particular worker process may in some embodiments and situationsbe executed on multiple computing nodes or other computing systems(e.g., in a distributed manner, such as simultaneously and/or seriallyon those computing systems). In addition, it will be appreciated thatparticular workflow component worker processes may perform differentoperations (e.g., more or less than are illustrated) in accordance withparticular configurations for their corresponding workflow components.

The illustrated embodiment of the routine begins at block 505, whereconfiguration information is received for a worker process of a definedworkload to be executed, and execution of the worker process isinitiated. In some embodiments and situations, the configurationinformation and execution initiation are received based on one or moreinteractions with the routine 400 of an embodiment of the configurableworkflow service, such as with respect to blocks 445 and 450 of FIG. 4.As discussed in greater detail elsewhere, each worker process may havevarious associated information, including to be of a defined type, tohave defined software code to be executed to implement the workerprocess, to have one or more defined data sources from which the workerprocess will receive input, to have one or more defined datadestinations to which data results produced by the worker process willbe provided, to optionally have other data associated with the workerprocess (e.g., configuration information related to how the workerprocesses will perform one or more specified data manipulationoperations), to optionally have one or more preconditions and/or postconditions, to optionally have one or more associated alarms, etc. Thus,while not illustrated with respect to the example embodiment of routine500, in other embodiments, the routine may further receive additionalinformation in block 505 or at other times, including configuration datato be used by the worker process.

After block 505 the routine continues to block 510, where it optionallyperforms any pre-processing activities for the worker process, such asto prepare the worker process to perform its specified data manipulationoperations or other operations. After block 510, the routine continuesto block 535, where it obtains source data to be used by the workerprocess from one or more specified source locations. For example, insome embodiments and situations, preconditions may be used that arebased at least in part on determining availability of such source data.After block 525, the routine continues to block 540 to perform one ormore specified data manipulation activities for the worker process onthe obtained source data. As discussed in greater detail elsewhere, suchspecified data manipulation activities may have various forms in variousembodiments and situations, including to move data from one location toanother location, to modify or otherwise transform data in variousmanners, etc.

After block 540, the routine continues to block 570 to provide theresults from the specified data manipulation activities of block 540 toone or more specified destination locations. As discussed in greaterdetail elsewhere, such activities in providing the results data mayinclude storing some or all of the results data in a specified storagelocation, sending one or more electronic communications that includesome or all of the specified results data, generating a particularreport or other format that includes some or all of the results data forpresentation, etc.

After block 570, the routine continues to block 595 to determine whetherto continue, such as until an explicit indication to terminate isreceived. If it is determined to continue, the routine returns to block520, and otherwise continues to block 599 and ends. In the illustratedembodiment, a given worker process may thus perform the activities ofblocks 520-570 multiple times if so configured, such as to perform oneor more specified data manipulation activities on different groups ofsource data at different times, including in situations in which thecomputing node(s) executing the worker process are operated for extendedperiods of time, such as for multiple implementations of the definedworkflow. In other embodiments, the worker process may further at timesreceive additional configuration information that modifies futureperformance of the worker process and/or may perform otherpre-processing activities at times, and thus in such situations theroutine may return from block 595 to blocks 505 and/or 510 ifappropriate.

It will be appreciated that in some embodiments the functionalityprovided by the routines discussed above may be provided in alternativeways, such as being split among more routines or consolidated into fewerroutines. Similarly, in some embodiments, illustrated routines mayprovide more or less functionality than is described, such as when theamount of functionality that is provided is altered. In addition, whilevarious operations may be illustrated as being performed in a particularmanner (e.g., in serial or in parallel) and/or in a particular order, inother embodiments the operations may be performed in other orders and inother manners. Similarly, the data structures discussed above may bestructured in different manners in other embodiments, such as by havinga single data structure split into multiple data structures or by havingmultiple data structures consolidated into a single data structure, andmay store more or less information than is described (e.g., when otherillustrated data structures instead lack or include such informationrespectively, or when the amount or types of information that is storedis altered).

Additional details are included below related to a particular exampleembodiment of a configurable workflow service, although it will beappreciated that the described techniques are not limited by suchdetails.

In this example embodiment, configurable workflow service (“CWS”)workflows (also referred to as “pipelines” in this example embodiment)are defined via a configuration language that enables description ofnodes (also referred to as “objects” in this example embodiment) thatform a pipeline. There are 5 general types of objects one can describein an CWS pipeline in this example embodiment, as follows:

-   -   Data Sources—An input to, or an output from a data manipulation        workflow component (also referred to as an “activity” in this        example embodiment).    -   Activities—An operation to run, such as data processing        transforms and data copies. Activities can be set to alarm on        certain states and to retry multiple times on failure.        Predefined activities include Copy, SQLTransform,        HiveQLTransform, ElasticMapReduceTransform, and        CommandLineTransform.    -   Pre-Conditions and Post-Conditions—An action associated to a        Data Source that evaluates to true when the Data Source is        considered available and/or well formed. Pre conditions that        complete successfully enable a following Activity that consumes        a Data Source as an input to be run. Post conditions that        complete successfully enable an Activity that creates a Data        Source to be considered to be successfully completed.    -   Schedules—An attribute of a Data Source that describes the        periodicity of the data or of an Activity that defines the        periodicity of when it runs, which can be at a granularity of        one or more minutes, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, etc.    -   Alarms—Describes a message to be published to a notification        service (e.g., Amazon's SNS, or Simple Notification Service),        sent via an electronic communication (e.g., email), etc.        Pipelines and individual Activities may have an Alarm defined        for both failure and for success.

A Pipeline is composed of objects and objects consist of attributes.Attributes have the form tag: value.

Objects have a name: attribute and type: attribute. In addition to nameand type, objects may have any number of other attributes depending onthe type of the object. In the example below, the object ‘Invoice Logs’describes a data object stored in an example online storage service SSS(referred to as <online-storage-service-SSS>) and has path: attribute inaddition to name: and type:

name: Invoice Logs

type: <online-storage-service-SSS>DataNode

path: <online-storage-service-SSS>//my_data/xyz.cvs

An attribute may optionally be repeated within an object. In the examplebelow, input: is repeated and the values for each input: attribute aretreated as an ordered list:

name: Invoice Processing

type: CommandRunnerTransform

input: Invoice Logs

input: Invoice Dimensions

The value of an attribute may be one of:

an object reference

an expression

a string literal

Here is a brief example showing each type of attribute value:

name: HourPeriodtype: Scheduleperiod: “1 hour”←--This is a string literal

Name: An Object

type: MyTransformdimension: HourPeriod←----This is an object referenceattrib: #{interval.end}←--This is an expression

Consider an example of concatenating 5 minute logs into an hourly log.Here is a simple Pipeline that concatenates 5 minute logs into an hourlylog in online-storage-service-SSS on a recurring basis. This Pipelineconsists of:

an input Data Source—5 minute click logs in <online-storage-service-SSS>a copy Activityan output Data Source (e.g., a data destination node)-1 hour click logsin <online-storage-service-SSS>2 Schedule objectsan Alarm objectname: FiveMinPeriodtype: Scheduleperiod: “5 minutes”name: HourPeriodtype: Scheduleperiod: “1 hour”name: Five Minute Logstype: <online-storage-service-SSS>DataNodedimension: FiveMinPeriodpath: “<online-storage-service-SSS>://prod/Clicks/#{interval.end}.csv”name: Concatenatetype: CopyTransformdimension: HourPeriodinput: Five Minute Logsoutput: Hourly Logs

on Fail: CopyFailedAlarm

name: CopyFailedAlarmtype: “EmailAlarm”to: <client-email-address>subject: “Click 5 min->1 hour Failed!”body:

Error for interval #{node.interval.start}.#{node.interval.end}

name: Hourly Logstype: <online-storage-service-SSS>DataNodedimension: HourPeriodpath:“<online-storage-service-SSS>://XXX-test/OutData/#{interval.end}.csv”

First, let's describe our 5 minute click logs in additional detail,which are the input to our Pipeline. The following 2 objects define 1) aSchedule (‘FiveMinPeriod’) and 2) a Data Source (‘Five Minute Logs’)that is associated with ‘FiveMinPeriod’:

name: FiveMinPeriodtype: Scheduleperiod: “5 minutes”name: Five Minute Logstype: <online-storage-service-SSS>DataNodedimension: FiveMinPeriodpath: “<online-storage-service-SSS>://prod/Clicks/#{interval.end}.csv”This has the effect of describing a series of<online-storage-service-SSS> files such as:. . .<online-storage-service-SSS>://prod/Clicks/2011-11-14:10:05:00.csv<on line-storage-service-SSS>://prod/Clicks/2011-11-14:10:10:00.csv<online-storage-service-SSS>://prod/Clicks/2011-11-14:10:15:00.csv<on line-storage-service-SSS>://prod/Clicks/2011-11-14:10:20:00.csv<online-storage-service-SSS>://prod/Clicks/2011-11-14:10:25:00.csv. . .Each such online-storage-service-SSS file can be thought of as aninstance of ‘Five Minute Logs’. Each one is distinct from the othersbased on the time period they represent, and the data that they include.

Further consider the object information shown below:

name: Five Minute Logstype: <online-storage-service-SSS>DataNodedimension: FiveMinPeriodpath: “<online-storage-service-SSS>://prod/Clicks/#{interval.end}.csv”The type: attribute identifies this as an<online-storage-service-SSS>DataNode source object. The name: can beanything, but in this example embodiment may be unique for this Pipelinedefinition. Data Source objects such as<online-storage-service-SSS>DataNodes may also have a dimensionattribute in this example embodiment, which describes different ways anobject can be materialized into occurrences. One common example ofdimension is time period, which can be expressed as minutes, hours,days, weeks, or months. Another example dimension is one based ongeographic regions, such as to correspond to different locations of datasource systems.

In addition, time periods may be specified by schedule objects in thisexample embodiment. In particular, we define a schedule object thatspecifies a 5 minute period as follows:

name: FiveMinPeriodtype: Scheduleperiod: “5 minutes”Notice ‘Five Minute Logs's dimension: attribute refers to the scheduleobject ‘FiveMinPeriod’. Now let's looks at the path: attribute:path: “<online-storage-service-SSS>://prod/Clicks/#{interval.end}.csv”The sequence ‘#{ }’ describes an expression. In this case the expressionto be evaluated is interval.end. Because ‘Five Minute Logs’ has aschedule associated with it, it contains an attribute called ‘interval’,which itself has a ‘start’ and ‘end’ value. In this way,interval.start.interval.end describes a specific time interval of aschedule:. . .interval.start 2011-11-14:10:00:00 interval.end 2011-11-14:10:05:00interval.start 2011-11-14:10:05:00 interval.end 2011-11-14:10:10:00interval.start 2011-11-14:10:15:00 interval.end 2011-11-14:10:20:00. . .The path: attribute is evaluated as an <online-storage-service-SSS> filename using the end of each 5 minute interval per the schedule object inthis case.

Next, let's describe an activity that reads an hour's worth of 5 minuteclicks and concatenates them into an hourly output file. These 3 objectsdefine 1) a Schedule ('HourPeriod), 2) a CopyTransform ('Concatenate)that is associated with ‘HourPeriod’, and 3) an Alarm(‘CopyFailedAlarm’) that will be invoked the event of failure:

name: HourPeriodtype: Scheduleperiod: “1 hour”name: Concatenatetype: CopyTransformdimension: HourPeriodinput: Five Minute Logsoutput: Hourly Logs

on Fail: CopyFailedAlarm

name: CopyFailedAlarmtype: “EmailAlarm”to: <client-email-address>subject: “Click 5 min->1 hour Failed!”body:

Error for interval #{node.interval.start}..#{node.interval.end}

CWS schedules and runs ‘Concatenate’ when an hour's worth of input:(Five Minute Logs') is available. When all 20 5-minute files for a givenhour are ready, each will be copied into output ‘Hourly Logs’. If the‘Concatenate’ process encounters a failure condition, the Alarm object‘CopyFailedAlarm’ will run and send an email.

In particular, ‘Concatenate’ is an object of type ‘CopyTransform’, whichis a built-in Activity provided by CWS in this example embodiment. TheCopyTransform takes an input Data Source and an output Data Source.Activities (CopyTransform is a type of Activity) may have a Scheduledimension associated with them, just like a Data Source. In this case,‘Concatenate’ is associated with the Schedule object ‘Hour Period’,which describes an hourly time interval. This can be thought of as thefollowing: “‘Concatenate’ processes 1 hour's worth of data”.

The Schedule of the input: in this case (Five Minute Logs') describes a5 minute interval, while the schedule of ‘Concatenate’ is hourly. CWSinfers that 20 5-minute input files map to the hourly interval ofprocessing ‘Concatenate’ is configured for. An Alarm object such as‘CopyFailedAlarm’ can be associated with any number of Activities. Thebody: attribute in this case contains the following expressions: Errorfor interval #{node.interval.start}..#{node.interval.end}. Alarms have anode: attribute that at runtime evaluates to the object the Alarm isreporting on. In this case, the ‘node’ would refer to the object‘Concatenate’ if the alarm was fired due to a failure with‘Concatenate’.

Finally, here is our output Data Source:

name: Hourly Logstype: <online-storage-service-SSS>DataNodedimension: HourPeriodpath:“<online-storage-service-SSS>://prod/concat-clicks/#{interval.end}.csv”

This has the effect of describing a series of<online-storage-service-SSS> files such as:

. . .<online-storage-service-SSS>//prod/concat-clicks/2011-11-14:00:0:00.csv<online-storage-service-SSS>://prod/concat-clicks/2011-11-14:01:0:00.csv<online-storage-service-SSS>://prod/concat-clicks/2011-11-14:02:0:00.csv. . .Each <online-storage-service-SSS> file may be thought of as an instanceof ‘Hourly Logs’. Each one is distinct from the others based on the timeperiod they represent, and the data that they include.

Further consider the following:

name: Concatenatetype: CopyTransformdimension: HourPeriodinput: Five Minute Logsoutput: Hourly Logsname: Hourly Logstype: <online-storage-service-SSS>DataNodedimension: HourPeriodpath:“<online-storage-service-SSS>://prod/concat-clicks/#{interval.end}.csv”Like the ‘Five Minute Logs’ Data Source described above, ‘Hourly Logs’is associated with a Schedule, which in this case is an hourly Schedule.The path: attribute is evaluated as an <online-storage-service-SSS> filename using the end of each hourly interval per the schedule object inthis case.The ‘Concatenate’ Activity specifies ‘Hourly Logs’ as the output DataSource. When CWS schedules and runs ‘Concatenate’, it also will giverise to an <online-storage-service-SSS> file corresponding to the endingtime range of the hourly schedule period for the current run.

The value of an attribute can take the following forms:

an object referencean expressiona string literal

With respect to object references, an attribute can refer to anotherPipeline object by name. This useful in forming certain types ofexpressions:

name: object1

type: sample

name: object2

type: sample

attrib1: object1<-------Reference to object1

With respect to expressions, an expression occurs within this construct:#{“expression”}. Expressions can be

a built in function:

attrib: #{day(currentTime( )}

a string value:

attrib: #{“this is a string value”}

concatenation of string terms:

attrib: #{“prefix-”+functionReturningString( )}

an integer or floating point value:

attrib: #{func(3.14, 5)}

numeric expressions:

attrib: #{func(3.14+5)}

a simple reference to another attribute

name: object1

type: sample

attrib1: #{today( )}

attrib2: #{attrib1}<-------attrib2 will have the value of attrib1

a qualified reference to another attribute

name: object1

type: sample

attrib1: #{today( )}

attrib2: attrib1

name: object2

type: sample

attrib3: object1<-------An object reference, does not appear inside the‘#{ }’ construct

attrib4: #{attrib3.attrib2}<-------This is a qualified attributereference (value is object1.attrib2)

With respect to string literals, an attribute can have a string literalvalue, such as “this is a string literal”. Also, a string literal cancontain an expression, which is evaluated as a string:

attrib1: “This contains an #{attrib2}”

attrib2: “expression”

Notice that attrib1 above has an expression embedded via the expressionconstruct: ‘#{ }’String literals can also be multi-line. In this case, each line indented2 spaces:

attrib3:

This is line one

This is the second line

And this is the last line

As noted above, these details of these example embodiments are providedfor the purpose of illustration, and are not intended to limit the scopeof the described techniques with respect to other embodiments.

From the foregoing it will be appreciated that, although specificembodiments have been described herein for purposes of illustration,various modifications may be made without deviating from the spirit andscope of the invention. Accordingly, the invention is not limited exceptas by the appended claims and the elements recited therein. In addition,while certain aspects of the invention are presented below in certainclaim forms, the inventors contemplate the various aspects of theinvention in any available claim form. For example, while only someaspects of the invention may currently be recited as being embodied in acomputer-readable medium, other aspects may likewise be so embodied.

What is claimed is:
 1. A computer-implemented method comprising:providing, by one or more configured computing systems of a configurableworkflow service, one or more interfaces to enable multiple clients ofthe configurable workflow service to configure workflows to beimplemented; receiving, by the one or more configured computing systems,configuration information from a first client of the multiple clientsfor a first defined workflow, the configuration information beingreceived via at least one of the provided interfaces and being sent overone or more networks from a remote location of the first client, theconfiguration information specifying multiple workflow components of thefirst defined workflow and interconnections between at least some of themultiple workflow components, at least some of the multiple workflowcomponents being selected by the client from a plurality of predefinedworkflow components provided by the configurable workflow service foruse by the multiple clients; selecting, by the one or more configuredcomputing systems, multiple computing nodes to use for implementing thefirst defined workflow, at least some of the multiple computing nodesbeing a subset of a plurality of computing nodes provided by theconfigurable workflow service for use by the multiple clients;provisioning, by the one or more configured computing systems, theselected computing nodes to each implement at least one of the multipleworkflow components; and implementing the first defined workflow for theclient by initiating, by the one or more configured computing systems,performance of defined activities on the selected computing nodes thatcorrespond to the implemented workflow components, the definedactivities including: one or more first activities involving obtaininginput data from one or more data sources external to the configurableworkflow service; one or more second activities involving producingintermediate results data by performing data manipulation operationsthat are based at least in part on the obtained input data; and one ormore third activities involving producing output data based at least inpart on the intermediate results data of the second activities andinvolving providing the produced output data to the first client.
 2. Themethod of claim 1 wherein the provided one or more interfaces include atleast a graphical user interface and an application programminginterface, and wherein the method further comprises: receivinginformation via one of the provided interfaces about one or morecriteria for initiating implementation of the first defined workflow,the one or more criteria being specified by the client and correspondingto periodic implementation of the first defined workflow at multipletimes based on changing input data that is available at the multipletimes; and at each of the multiple times, determining, by the one ormore configured computing systems, that one or more criteria aresatisfied; and performing the implementing of the first definedworkflow.
 3. The method of claim 2 wherein the configurable workflowservice is a fee-based service, and wherein the method further comprisesobtaining one or more fees from the first client for performing theimplementing of the first defined workflow.
 4. A computer-implementedmethod comprising: receiving, by one or more configured computingsystems of a configurable workflow service, configuration informationfor a defined workflow of a client of the configurable workflow service,the configuration information specifying multiple workflow components ofthe defined workflow and interconnections between at least some of themultiple workflow components; provisioning, by the one or moreconfigured computing systems, multiple computing nodes to each implementat least one of the multiple workflow components, at least one of themultiple computing nodes being provided by the configurable workflowservice for use by clients of the configurable workflow service; andimplementing the defined workflow for the client by initiatingperformance of defined activities on the multiple computing nodes thatcorrespond to the implemented workflow components, the definedactivities including: one or more first activities involving obtaininginput data from one or more data sources external to the configurableworkflow service; one or more second activities involving producingintermediate results data by performing data manipulation operationsthat are based at least in part on the obtained input data; and one ormore third activities involving producing output data based at least inpart on the intermediate results data of the second activities.
 5. Themethod of claim 4 wherein the implementing of the defined workflow forthe client further includes at least one of storing the produced outputdata in one or more storage locations specified by the client, andgenerating one or more reports that are based at least in part of theproduced output data and that are provided to the client.
 6. The methodof claim 4 further comprising: receiving indications of one or morecriteria for initiating implementation of the defined workflow; andbefore the implementing of the defined workflow, determining, by the oneor more configured computing systems, that the one or more criteria aresatisfied.
 7. The method of claim 6 wherein the one or more criteriacorrespond to periodic implementation of the defined workflow atmultiple times based on changing input data that is available at thosemultiple times, and wherein the method further comprises performing theimplementing of the defined workflow at each of those multiple times. 8.The method of claim 6 wherein at least one of one or more criteria isdefined as a pre-condition associated with at least one of the multipleworkflow components.
 9. The method of claim 6 further comprisingreceiving information about a post-condition criterion associated withone of the multiple workflow components, and wherein the implementing ofthe defined workflow further includes determining that thepost-condition criterion is satisfied after the performing of one ormore of the defined activities that correspond to the one workflowcomponent.
 10. The method of claim 6 wherein the determining that theone or more criteria are satisfied occurs at a first time, and whereinthe method further comprises: determining, by the one or more configuredcomputing systems, that the one or more criteria are not satisfied at asecond time; and in response, generating an alarm notification for theclient to indicate that the one or more criteria are not satisfied. 11.The method of claim 4 further comprising: providing a graphical userinterface, wherein the client specifies by the configuration informationvia the graphical user interface by editing a graph that logicallyrepresents the defined workflow, each of the multiple workflowcomponents being indicated within the graph by at least one of multiplenodes of the graph; and wherein the implementing of the defined workflowincludes physically instantiating a copy of the graph.
 12. The method ofclaim 4 further comprising implementing the defined workflow for theclient at multiple distinct times, and wherein one or more of themultiple computing nodes are maintained between the multiple distincttimes to enable the provisioning of the one or more computing nodes tooccur only once.
 13. The method of claim 4 wherein, for one or more ofthe multiple computing nodes, the computing node is implemented as acluster of multiple computer systems that perform at least one of thedefined activities in a distributed manner.
 14. The method of claim 4wherein the provisioning of the multiple computing nodes includes, foreach of the multiple computing nodes, loading at least one of a softwareprogram and configuration data on the computing node.
 15. The method ofclaim 4 wherein one or more of the multiple computing nodes are providedby an online execution service external to the configurable workflowservice, and wherein the provisioning of the one or more computing nodesincludes performing, by the one or more configured computing systems,one or more interactions with the online execution service correspondingto the one or more computing nodes.
 16. The method of claim 15 whereinthe provided one or more computing nodes are associated by the onlineexecution service with an account of the client with the onlineexecution service, and wherein the one or more interactions with theonline execution service include providing information on behalf of theclient to the online execution service regarding the account of theclient.
 17. The method of claim 15 wherein the provided one or morecomputing nodes are associated by the online execution service with theconfigurable workflow service in a manner that prevents the client fromobtaining access to the one or more computing nodes.
 18. The method ofclaim 4 wherein the multiple workflow components include one or moresource components and one or more data manipulation components and oneor more destination components, each of the one or more sourcecomponents having an associated data source and associated instructionsfor accessing at least some of the input data from the associated datasource, each of the one or more data manipulation components havingassociated instructions for performing at least one of the datamanipulation operations, and each of the one or more destinationcomponents having associated instructions of handling at least some ofthe output data that is produced.
 19. The method of claim 18 wherein themultiple workflow components further include multiple of the sourcecomponents, and wherein at least one of the source components issupplied by the client to the configurable workflow service to enableaccess to a data source that is specific to the client.
 20. The methodof claim 18 wherein the multiple workflow components further includemultiple of the data manipulation components, and wherein at least oneof the data manipulation components has an associated data manipulationoperation that is supplied by the client to the configurable workflowservice to enable performance of a defined activity that is specific tothe client.
 21. The method of claim 18 wherein one or more of themultiple workflow components are provided by the configurable workflowservice and are selected by the client for use in the defined workflow.22. The method of claim 4 further comprising, for each of multipleadditional clients of the configurable workflow service: receivingconfiguration information for an additional defined workflow of theadditional client; storing the configuration information for anadditional defined workflow of the additional client on one or morestorage mechanisms of the configurable workflow service; andimplementing the additional defined workflow on behalf of the additionalclient on one or more computing nodes at one or more times.
 23. Anon-transitory computer-readable medium having stored contents thatconfigure a computing system of a configurable workflow service to:provision, by the configured computing system, multiple computing nodesbased on configuration information supplied by a client for a definedworkflow, the provisioning including configuring the multiple computingnodes to implement multiple workflow components for the definedworkflow, the defined workflow including interconnections between atleast some of the multiple workflow components; and implement thedefined workflow for the client by initiating performance of definedactivities on the multiple computing nodes that correspond to theimplemented workflow components, the performance of the definedactivities including obtaining input data from one or more data sources,performing data manipulation operations that are based at least in parton the obtained input data, and producing output data based at least inpart on the performed data manipulation operations.
 24. Thenon-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 23 wherein theconfigurable workflow service provides a plurality of computing nodesfor use in implementing workflows for multiple clients of theconfigurable workflow service, wherein at least some of the multiplecomputing nodes are a subset of the plurality of computing nodes, andwherein the stored contents are software instructions that, whenexecuted, program the configured computing system.
 25. Thenon-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 23 wherein thecomputing system is further configured to, before the provisioning ofthe multiple computing nodes: provide one or more interfaces for use byclients of the configurable network service in specifying information;and receive configuration information from the client for the definedworkflow via at least one of the provided interfaces, and wherein thedefined activities are performed in accordance with the receivedconfiguration information.
 26. The non-transitory computer-readablemedium of claim 23 wherein at least some of the multiple computing nodesare provided by one or more program execution services external to theconfigurable workflow service, and wherein the computing system isfurther configured to interact with the one or more program executionservices on behalf of the client as part of the provisioning of themultiple computing nodes.
 27. The non-transitory computer-readablemedium of claim 23 wherein at least some of the multiple computing nodesare provided by the client via one or more computer systems undercontrol of the client at a location remote from the configured computingsystem, and wherein the computing system is further configured tointeract with the one or more computer systems as part of theprovisioning of the multiple computing nodes.
 28. A system, comprising:one or more processors; and one or more modules of a configurableworkflow service that are configured to, when executed by at least oneof the one or more processors, provide functionality of a definedworkflow for a client by: receiving configuration information from theclient specifying multiple workflow components and interconnections forthe defined workflow; provisioning multiple computing nodes based atleast in part on the received configuration information to implement themultiple workflow components; and implementing the defined workflow forthe client by initiating performance of defined activities on themultiple computing nodes that correspond to the implemented workflowcomponents, the performance of the defined activities includingobtaining input data from one or more data sources, performing datamanipulation operations that are based at least in part on the obtainedinput data, and producing output data based at least in part on theperformed data manipulation operations.
 29. The system of claim 28further comprising a plurality of computing nodes for use inimplementing workflows for multiple clients of the configurable workflowservice, wherein at least some of the multiple computing nodes are asubset of the plurality of computing nodes, and wherein the one or moremodules include software instructions for execution by at least one ofthe one or more processors.
 30. The system of claim 28 wherein the oneor more modules consist of one or more means for performing theproviding of the functionality of the defined workflow for the client.